Grieve writes that a "tipster notes that the Holiday as we know it will close after Saturday night. 'Locks will be changed immediately.' We understand that another bar will take its place. What happens to the current appearance is unknown. Per the tipster: "Another EV historical institution gone.'"

SONNUVABEECH! I used to go here after high-school let out and get totally plowed on tequila! And hock hot CDs at Bleecker Bob's! Now where am I gonna go to show my kid all the criminal activity I used to indulge in?

NOOOOOOO! I haven't been here in years, in fact last time was before the smoking ban. I always made sure to bring some Visine with me because it was so smoky in there that my eyes would start stinging seconds after entering. One of the all-time great dive bars. This sucks!

When Stefan died two years ago we knew that this place didn't have many years yet. I don't think this is a bad closing. A key person dies, the business closes shortly later, is a natural death of a business and I distinguish that from businesses killed by a rent increase, the police, or city bureaucrats.

The difference from the old days is that if a Holiday Cocktail Lounge type place closed, there would be something similar to take its place. That is no longer the case. As these places close one by one, a pretty good era slips away.

Also, once an area reaches a certain point of overgentrification, I usually write it off and stop going there before the last hold-outs go away. But that is not quite the case with the part of the East Village where the Holiday Cocktail Lounge was. Maybe its getting close.

there are "starbucks" all over guadalajara. weird, as 75% of the population lives below the poverty line. the coffee is the same price it is here. & just as bad, but boy what a status symbol! people dont want charm, they want to be where its hip. theres nothing hip about putting all that crap in your coffee. "subway" is another popular stop for the less affluent. they dont want tortillas. the upwardly mobile "almost middle class" brag about how much $ they spend in walmart. they make fun of me for going to the little grocerias, bringing my own sandwich on an excursion, & god forbid stop @ a tortilla place. see where this is going?? a world wide mentality. my taxi driver in mexico is shocked that that i dont do starbucks, he says im a cheap for a high roller. he was born in L.A, & just doesnt "get" it. he says if he had more $, he would spend all day in malls. the world has come to an end.

Laura, to a surprising degree in the rest of the world, the United States still stands for modernity and modernity is viewed as a Good Thing. Both views are decades out of date, but then again not everyone in this country has caught on.

However, have you tried to go to other places in Mexico? I also spend alot of time in the developing world and I've notice that this varies from place to place, even between neighboring towns.

@laura and Ed, Even in America, it's not like Starbucks has high class cachet. If anything, the wealthier and better educated you are, the more likely you are to look down your nose at Starbucks.

I don't like their coffee, but I wouldn't mind them so much if their stores weren't such a visual blight on the city. Everything about their aesthetic from the floor tiling to the music is tacky and awful. But saying that makes me feel like a snob.

St. Marks is slowly dying. Already one block is all Asian/sushi restaurants (two new ones in the past couple months) and tattoo places with the few remaining 'cultural' places barely holding on. As it, I know one landlord who refused to rent out to McDonalds to keep the street alive ... they moved just around the corner ... but it's only time ... Alas my love I knew ye well

I have known people who own buildings and businesses in Brooklyn (mostly) and with the gentrifications that have occurred during my lifetime..I think possibly the owners of said buildings/businesses feel that they want to try something new--some sell and leave and go on to other lives away from the City..the sad thing is..there is no turning back.

"Jeremiah Moss does an excellent job of cataloging all that’s constantly being sacrificed to the god of rising rents." --Hugo Lindgren, New York Times Magazine

"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss... Even as the changes he's cataloging break our hearts a little, it's that kind of lovely, precise writing that makes Moss's blog essential reading." --Village Voice, Best of NY

“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine

"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab